Shachtman analyzes the Wikileaks trove. There's no evidence, however, that they were part of any ongoing program as claimed by the Bush administration:

Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents...

In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base...

Even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time.”

The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.

But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iraq. That same month, then “chemical weapons specialists” were apprehended in Balad. These “foreigners” were there specifically “to support the chemical weapons operations.” The following month, an intelligence report refers to a “chemical weapons expert” that “provided assistance with the gas weapons.” What happened to that specialist, the WikiLeaked document doesn’t say.

I know of no incident when these weapons were actually used against US troops. And the irony, of course, is that it was the invasion that gave insurgents and Islamists access to these remnants.

Molon Labe

10-24-2010, 02:00 PM

What they "found" and what they were looking for are two very different things.

The equivelent of the Fed drug enforcers trying to raid a Marijuana farm and processing plant and finding a joint, half smoked bowl of resin and ten bags of munchies. :rolleyes:

Rockntractor

10-24-2010, 02:07 PM

What they "found" and what they were looking for are two very different things.

The equivelent of the Fed drug enforcers trying to raid a Marijuana farm and processing plant and finding a joint, half smoked bowl of resin and ten bags of munchies. :rolleyes:

Were the munchies fried in trans fats?:confused::eek:

Molon Labe

10-24-2010, 02:13 PM

Were the munchies fried in trans fats?:confused::eek:

if they were, that would make it even more of a Federal offense...:D

AmPat

10-24-2010, 02:17 PM

History will tell and is already telling that the WMD were there. We already knew that but are trying to change history for the sake of political expediency. Weapons were found and the media failed to cover it or folow it up. I don't remember the full story of a truck load of WMD was headed for Jordan and was intercepted. The story was buried within three days. They also found a large operation headed to Syria prior to the invasion. Photos taken and many transport trucks were involved. These stories were never followed up. We know Sadam used WMD on his own people and the Iranians. Did that establish proof? Not to Libertards.

Looks like Wiki did some good after all. This will put paid to the garbage that there were no WMD in Iraq..and they are still being found.

Look forward to seeing Wei's face when he sees this :D:D

By late 2003, even the Bush White House’s staunchest defenders were starting to give up on the idea that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

But WikiLeaks’ newly-released Iraq war documents reveal that for years afterward, U.S. troops continued to find chemical weapons labs, encounter insurgent specialists in toxins and uncover weapons of mass destruction.

An initial glance at the WikiLeaks war logs doesn’t reveal evidence of some massive WMD program by the Saddam Hussein regime — the Bush administration’s most (in)famous rationale for invading Iraq. But chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam’s toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict — and may have brewed up their own deadly agents.

In August 2004, for instance, American forces surreptitiously purchased what they believed to be containers of liquid sulfur mustard, a toxic “blister agent” used as a chemical weapon since World War I. The troops tested the liquid, and “reported two positive results for blister.” The chemical was then “triple-sealed and transported to a secure site” outside their base.

Three months later, in northern Iraq, U.S. scouts went to look in on a “chemical weapons” complex. “One of the bunkers has been tampered with,” they write. “The integrity of the seal [around the complex] appears intact, but it seems someone is interesting in trying to get into the bunkers.”

Meanwhile, the second battle of Fallujah was raging in Anbar province. In the southeastern corner of the city, American forces came across a “house with a chemical lab … substances found are similar to ones (in lesser quantities located a previous chemical lab.” The following day, there’s a call in another part of the city for explosive experts to dispose of a “chemical cache.”

Looks like the jihadis were the ones using chemical weapons...gee I wonder where they came from...:rolleyes:

Nearly three years later, American troops were still finding WMD in the region. An armored Buffalo vehicle unearthed a cache of artillery shells “that was covered by sacks and leaves under an Iraqi Community Watch checkpoint. “The 155mm rounds are filled with an unknown liquid, and several of which are leaking a black tar-like substance.” Initial tests were inconclusive. But later, “the rounds tested positive for mustard.”

In WikiLeaks’ massive trove of nearly 392,000 Iraq war logs are hundreds of references to chemical and biological weapons. Most of those are intelligence reports or initial suspicions of WMD that don’t pan out. In July 2004, for example, U.S. forces come across a Baghdad building with gas masks, gas filters, and containers with “unknown contents” inside. Later investigation revealed those contents to be vitamins.

But even late in the war, WMDs were still being unearthed. In the summer of 2008, according to one WikiLeaked report, American troops found at least 10 rounds that tested positive for chemical agents. “These rounds were most likely left over from the [Saddam]-era regime. Based on location, these rounds may be an AQI [Al Qaeda in Iraq] cache. However, the rounds were all total disrepair and did not appear to have been moved for a long time.”

A small group — mostly of the political right — has long maintained that there was more evidence of a major and modern WMD program than the American people were led to believe. A few Congressmen and Senators gravitated to the idea, but it was largely dismissed as conspiratorial hooey.

The WMD diehards will likely find some comfort in these newly-WikiLeaked documents. Skeptics will note that these relatively small WMD stockpiles were hardly the kind of grave danger that the Bush administration presented in the run-up to the war.

But the more salient issue may be how insurgents and Islamic extremists (possibly with the help of Iran) attempted to use these lethal and exotic arms. As Spencer noted earlier, a January 2006 war log claims that “neuroparalytic” chemical weapons were smuggled in from Iran.

That same month, then “chemical weapons specialists” were apprehended in Balad. These “foreigners” were there specifically “to support the chemical weapons operations.” The following month, an intelligence report refers to a “chemical weapons expert” that “provided assistance with the gas weapons.” What happened to that specialist, the WikiLeaked document doesn’t say.

He is probably somewhere, dark and nasty, whilst we wring every last bit of intel from his scrawny hide

Read More http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/10/wikileaks-show-wmd-hunt-continued-in-iraq-with-surprising-results/#ixzz13RfP76pE

KhrushchevsShoe

10-26-2010, 09:12 AM

Are you dessiminating classified matierial on the internet, Sonnabend?

Rockntractor

10-26-2010, 10:20 AM

Are you dessiminating classified matierial on the internet, Sonnabend?

Are you dessiminating classified matierial on the internet, Sonnabend?

Already been done you moron and the one who did it deserves to have his head emptied by a dose of high velocity lead poisoning for what he's done.

PoliCon

10-26-2010, 11:44 AM

Something that people keep overlooking is that the UN resolution was that Saddam would dismatle his WMD stockpiles and VERIFY that they had been dismantled. People keep forgetting that he had to PROVE that he dismantled them.

Molon Labe

10-26-2010, 02:39 PM

Something that people keep overlooking is that the UN resolution was that Saddam would dismatle his WMD stockpiles and VERIFY that they had been dismantled. People keep forgetting that he had to PROVE that he dismantled them.

You must have overlooked this then.

No Iraq WMDs Made After '91 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html)

Nubs

10-26-2010, 04:17 PM

You must have overlooked this then.

No Iraq WMDs Made After '91 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134625,00.html)

However, as condition of the Gulf 1 ceasefire, Iraq had to disclose and account for the destruction of any and all NBC warheads. Iraq did not, therfore, the ceasefire is null and void.

PoliCon

10-26-2010, 04:18 PM

However, as condition of the Gulf 1 ceasefire, Iraq had to disclose and account for the destruction of any and all NBC warheads. Iraq did not, therfore, the ceasefire is null and void.

EXACTLY

Molon Labe

10-26-2010, 05:02 PM

However, as condition of the Gulf 1 ceasefire, Iraq had to disclose and account for the destruction of any and all NBC warheads. Iraq did not, therfore, the ceasefire is null and void.

It's in the documents above.....

And the oversight of that condition was met according to all the history I've read. Where are you getting that the inspections showed non compliance? There are plenty of well documented sources that show this is false.

Why conservatives are still apologists for this administration who helped destroy our credibility I'll never know....:rolleyes:

Nubs

10-26-2010, 05:19 PM

It's in the documents above.....

And the oversight of that condition was met according to all the history I've read. Where are you getting that the inspections showed non compliance? There are plenty of well documented sources that show this is false.

Why conservatives are still apologists for this administration who helped destroy our credibility I'll never know....:rolleyes:

So the WikiLeaks documents are incorrect at best or forgeries and your citations are correct?

Is Asange a tool of BushCo?

Molon Labe

10-26-2010, 05:51 PM

So the WikiLeaks documents are incorrect at best or forgeries and your citations are correct?

Is Asange a tool of BushCo?

I guess people believe what they wish to believe. That seems like an awful giant leap and seems the strawman. I think over the years, I've made an honest attempt to be objective about this issues since I was once in the camp like you and believed eveything Bush, and his cadre was telling me about Iraq.. but it's just not so..never was. I was duped. Refer to post #2 for why I think the reality is relevant.

PoliCon

10-26-2010, 06:08 PM

So the WikiLeaks documents are incorrect at best or forgeries and your citations are correct?

Is Asange a tool of BushCo?

Come now - the USAToday and MSNBC are far more reliable than the truth!!11!!!!111!!!!!111!!!:rolleyes:

Arroyo_Doble

10-26-2010, 06:08 PM

It's in the documents above.....

And the oversight of that condition was met according to all the history I've read. Where are you getting that the inspections showed non compliance? There are plenty of well documented sources that show this is false.

Why conservatives are still apologists for this administration who helped destroy our credibility I'll never know....:rolleyes:

I find the conservatives' appeal to protect the integrity of the UN and their ceasefire agreements more interesting.

Constitutionally Speaking

10-26-2010, 06:49 PM

It's in the documents above.....

And the oversight of that condition was met according to all the history I've read. Where are you getting that the inspections showed non compliance? There are plenty of well documented sources that show this is false.

Why conservatives are still apologists for this administration who helped destroy our credibility I'll never know....:rolleyes:

They did NOT show that all WMD's were disposed of. If I have missed something please let me know.

Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponised. Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponised. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.

I would now like to turn to the so-called “Air Force document” that I have discussed with the Council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.

The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.

The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.

The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.

Molon Labe

10-26-2010, 08:00 PM

They did NOT show that all WMD's were disposed of. If I have missed something please let me know.

CS... What we were sold and what is there are two different things. What I'm saying is if you are going base the invasion on finding some crumbs, then why haven't we done so with about a half dozen other nations?

I find the conservatives' appeal to protect the integrity of the UN and their ceasefire agreements more interesting.

That's the irony
Everytime a conservative uses the enforcement of the UN resolutions as justifications for our actions, they have just ceded US sovereignty to a higher authority. So yeah...let's hear it for a philosophy based on small government and speaks lip service that it hates SupraNational authority..........

that justifies it's actions on the biggest of big government. The United Nations. :rolleyes:

Constitutionally Speaking

10-26-2010, 09:23 PM

I don't think we were SOLD anything faulty on purpose. If Saddam was on the up and up - and I do NOT think he was, then what Bush did was the result of faulty intelligence.

That intelligence was faulty because of the literal castration of our intelligence services by starving it of funds (nearly ALL human intelligence was let go by the Clinton administration) and by neutering it with rules that made it impossible to recruit decent new human intelligence.

I also don't think that 1000 tonnes of VX gas is equivalent to crumbs.

PoliCon

10-26-2010, 09:24 PM

CS... What we were sold and what is there are two different things. What I'm saying is if you are going base the invasion on finding some crumbs, then why haven't we done so with about a half dozen other nations?
Are you seriously going to be this thick?WMD was only one of MANY reasons given for the war in Iraq. The majority of the intelligence reported that Saddam was expanding or looking to expand his WMD stock piles. The reality is he never complied with the cease fire resolution. He was known to use WMD on his own people and on his adversaries. He was ready willing and able to expand his power and influence by opposing any action we took in the region and giving refuge to our enemies - he'd already been doing just that! Couple those facts with Saddams known connection to terrorism and there was plenty of reason to topple him. True - the intelligence about WMD did not pan out - but that does not justify your position I'm sorry.

Molon Labe

10-27-2010, 05:44 PM

I don't think we were SOLD anything faulty on purpose. If Saddam was on the up and up - and I do NOT think he was, then what Bush did was the result of faulty intelligence.

That intelligence was faulty because of the literal castration of our intelligence services by starving it of funds (nearly ALL human intelligence was let go by the Clinton administration) and by neutering it with rules that made it impossible to recruit decent new human intelligence.

I also don't think that 1000 tonnes of VX gas is equivalent to crumbs.

Ok... I get your point. Correct me if I'm wrong but the tonnes were not weaponized VX? Do you believe this actually meets the "stockpiling" criteria that was used in the resolutions? Because, I remember units finding mortar and old artillery shells IEDs with agents in them at the beginning of the war. I remember headlines about the bomb squads disarming them, but there was never any story that they would qualify as WMD's or as the "smoking gun".

Why is it that Bush spent the last 4 years of his presidency trying to fight damage control for not finding any WMD's and still to this day accepts that we found nothing of any relevance?

So...How did information like this go completely unnoticed in his daily briefings? How is this not a gotcha moment years ago when it was discovered to shove right in the face of the liberals who denouced the war?

If "this" was the WMD "stockpiles" we were truly "looking for" then why is it still classified? Powell's initial briefing on Weapons had site pictures and everything...so it wasn't because it was too secret to release that we found something.

I guess CS, this justification for invasion, occupation and nationbuilding and 4000 American soldier deaths just hits a nerve with me. Because for so long we've been bogged down trying to nationbuild this podunk M.E. nation. Thankfully, I think some conservatives are beginning to realize that you can’t have limited government and a policy of endless occupations. Just like government can't solve problems here at home, it sure as hell can't fix the backward M.E. region.

Nubs

10-27-2010, 11:29 PM

I don't think we were SOLD anything faulty on purpose. If Saddam was on the up and up - and I do NOT think he was, then what Bush did was the result of faulty intelligence.

That intelligence was faulty because of the literal castration of our intelligence services by starving it of funds (nearly ALL human intelligence was let go by the Clinton administration) and by neutering it with rules that made it impossible to recruit decent new human intelligence.

I also don't think that 1000 tonnes of VX gas is equivalent to crumbs.

The nerve agent VX stockpiled at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana is stored in 1,690 steel ton containers commonly known as "TCs". These containers are designed specifically for the maintenance, storage, and transportation of bulk chemical agent. The Newport Chemical Depot (NECD) stores bulk nerve agent VX in ton containers that are over six and one-half feet long, and almost three feet in diameter. The solid steel sidewalls are roughly a half inch thick, and each end is about one inch thick. When empty, the containers weigh 1,600 pounds. When filled to capacity, the containers can hold up to 170 gallons of liquid, though the TCs stored at Newport have a layer of nitrogen gas that occupies a 10 percent void within the TC. Ton containers are designed to withstand pressures up to 25 times greater than the pressure of our atmosphere, and internal pressures up to 500 pounds per square inch. The ton containers at Newport are stacked in rows three containers high, and are clamped together for stability on top of wooden concave cradles inside a single warehouse of corrugated steel sheet metal supported by steel beams. In order to provide maximum protection to facility personnel and the environment, storage personnel are trained in handling ton containers storing chemical agent and monitoring the containers for signs of leakage

A little blurb about the Newport Army Depot, the main srtorage facility for VX in the US.

So 1000 tonnes, over 30 billion lethal doses, of VX is over 3 times what a US Chemical Weapons Depot was designed to hold. Crumbs???

Constitutionally Speaking

10-28-2010, 08:04 AM

Ok... I get your point. Correct me if I'm wrong but the tonnes were not weaponized VX? Do you believe this actually meets the "stockpiling" criteria that was used in the resolutions? Because, I remember units finding mortar and old artillery shells IEDs with agents in them at the beginning of the war. I remember headlines about the bomb squads disarming them, but there was never any story that they would qualify as WMD's or as the "smoking gun".

<snip>

If "this" was the WMD "stockpiles" we were truly "looking for" then why is it still classified? Powell's initial briefing on Weapons had site pictures and everything...so it wasn't because it was too secret to release that we found something.

Unfortunately it was weaponized. I am not claiming that we found all that we are looking for. In fact the point of Blix's statement here was that we HAVE NOT found it. But THAT is the problem. Saddam was supposed to show us how he disposed of it, and instead he first tried to confiscate the proof that it existed and then tried to claim he destroyed it (there is absolutely no evidence that it was destroyed). The question still remains - WHERE IS IT? (SYRIA??)

From the earlier link to Hans Blix's United Nations address:

UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.

There are also indications that the agent was weaponised.

Constitutionally Speaking

10-28-2010, 08:18 AM

I guess CS, this justification for invasion, occupation and nationbuilding and 4000 American soldier deaths just hits a nerve with me. Because for so long we've been bogged down trying to nationbuild this podunk M.E. nation. Thankfully, I think some conservatives are beginning to realize that you can’t have limited government and a policy of endless occupations. Just like government can't solve problems here at home, it sure as hell can't fix the backward M.E. region.

I understand this sentiment. I just believe that radical Islam is a real threat and so was Saddam.

djones520

10-28-2010, 08:59 AM

I understand this sentiment. I just believe that radical Islam is a real threat and so was Saddam.

I'm reading a book right now that is examining the doctrine of joint operations in the post-cold war era.

The author included a blurb about the idea of preemptive action (namely about Iraq). It said that the big-whigs at the top were all in agreement that while Iraq posed no immediate threat (within a year or two), with the evolving war on terrorism, there was little doubt that Saddam's regime was going to be a major supplier of money, arms, and training, and with the questionable intelligence about his WMD capablities...

We already had plenty of proof that he was doing that, and the longer there was no action being taken, the more emboldened he was going to be in doing it. Eventually, another 9/11 would have occured, and Saddam very likely would have had his fingerprints on it.

We weren't talking about a convential threat in the idea of preemptive action. We were talking about a major power aiding an uncoventional attacker against us. That was the basis for the preemptive action, and I fully agree with it.

KhrushchevsShoe

10-28-2010, 02:58 PM

If you wanted to attack radical Islam, and I'm not sure that's even remotely possibly via wars, Iraq was not the hotbed its been made out to be. Saddam kept that shit in check, perhaps maniacally, but if you subscribe to a American-centric world view keeping him in power was not such a bad idea.

Constitutionally Speaking

10-28-2010, 03:45 PM

If you wanted to attack radical Islam, and I'm not sure that's even remotely possibly via wars, Iraq was not the hotbed its been made out to be. Saddam kept that shit in check, perhaps maniacally, but if you subscribe to a American-centric world view keeping him in power was not such a bad idea.

He kept it under control in his OWN country, but he FUNDED it elsewhere.

PoliCon

10-28-2010, 05:01 PM

He kept it under control in his OWN country, but he FUNDED it elsewhere.
a nuance that is clearly lost on this one dimensional idiot.

Molon Labe

10-28-2010, 05:13 PM

The Saudis and Pakistanis actually fund, export and had funded/exported more terrorism than Pre war Iraq did.
But they are our buddies. :rolleyes:

PoliCon

10-28-2010, 05:28 PM

The Saudis and Pakistanis actually fund, export and had funded/exported more terrorism than Pre war Iraq did.
But they are our buddies. :rolleyes:

CORRECTION! People in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had funded . . . . NOT the states themselves. The governments of both states have been the sole moderating forces keeping the worst in check.

Molon Labe

10-28-2010, 05:36 PM

CORRECTION! People in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan had funded . . . . NOT the states themselves. The governments of both states have been the sole moderating forces keeping the worst in check.

That's why the Pakistan government admitted this summer they are sabotaging peace talks in Afghanistan and supported insurgents against our troops.

PoliCon

10-28-2010, 05:38 PM

That's why the Pakistan government admitted this summer they are sabotaging peace talks in Afghanistan and supported insurgents against our troops.

You realize that there is a different government there now than there was when we started working with them? :rolleyes:

Molon Labe

10-28-2010, 05:52 PM

You realize that there is a different government there now than there was when we started working with them? :rolleyes:

Yeah..I'm not sure what any of that means, because it doesn't matter. Here it is plain and simple. Pakistan and India hate each other. And there isn't any way Pakistan is going to allow a pro India Karzai Afghanistan to exist in the Balance of power in the M.E. So whatever relevance it is that it's a different govenment is only important in that the new government is an outcome of the way the public in Pakistan view the situation in Afghanistan.

This ignorance about M.E. politics is just another reason why American politicians and the current miltiary strategy are clueless about what's going on over there.

But I guess it's just peachy that these Pakistani idiots are getting U.S funding and then sending it directly to the insurgents killing US troops.

Tecate

10-28-2010, 07:15 PM

A bullshit war based entirely on lies...

I'm ashamed for being conned into it and going along with it at the time.